Shokunin

I just got back from a 9-day trip to Osaka and Kyoto.  In the week prior to the trip, I re-watched Jiro Dreams of Sushi and tried to brush up on my Japanese by watching Japanese TV shows.  A word that comes up in Jiro Dreams of Sushi -- shokunin -- ended up being the theme for this month and this trip.  Online searches will tell you that shokunin describes not just artisans but also a general attitude or spirit of doing any task to the best of your ability, with great speed, skill, precision, talent, and passion.  I have always admired the ability of many artisans to devote their entire livelihood to honing a particular skill or working for one company.  Perhaps as in America, it is becoming less common for Japanese to remain loyal to one company for their entire career.  This constancy and persistence is something I struggle with as well.  It's part of the reason I took up long-distance running -- to practice patience, persistence, and constancy.  At work, I think I've earned a reputation as someone who is very efficient and who looks for ways to make work more efficient.  However, now I'm starting to realize that there is also great value in performing certain tasks regularly, without taking any shortcuts.  Other sources provided a unique insight that it seems in Japan, repetition and working alongside a master is what is most important as an apprentice learns the skills of the trade.  I was taught from a young age to learn why, rather than memorizing facts.  The Japanese way seems to counter this train of thinking and made me think about whether perhaps I've gotten it wrong.  It's true that in sports, I've practiced freethrows, setting, and swimming to the point where my muscles memorized what to do.  Maybe this type of training works well for art as well.

I've taken up so many hobbies, only to give up on them once I thought that I'd never be good enough or once I got bored.  I thought that if I wasn't immediately great at something, it wouldn't be worth pursuing it.  How much better could I possibly become, especially if others who might be naturally good at these activities could always be better than me?  This is the type of question I'm trying to ignore as I pursue my interests in photography, sewing, and art.  Although I get discouraged sometimes when I see pictures online of the beautiful work that others have made, I have to remember that even if I never make anything that someone else buys, sometimes the process of making something will teach me something more valuable.  In the end, I would be proud of whatever I made if I did my best every time and could see progress, either in the work product or in myself.